Southampton's Mental Health Awareness Team Successfully Hosts Cornhole Tournament, Part of Larger Monthlong Campaign

The Southampton High School Mental Health Team hosted its first ever cornhole tournament on Saturday on the school’s turf, and while it was the team’s first large, community-based event, it was just a continuation of the many events it’s putting on throughout May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month.

Since the beginning of the month, the team, made up of the school’s psychologist Avni Patel and social workers Christopher DeRosa, Arlette Flores and Kim McClain, has been leading various projects related to mental health. Every Wednesday of the month the team designates a mental health disorder or statistic during morning announcements to help educate the school community. Stress balls of different colors relating to certain disorders have also been placed throughout the school, and the students who find them are given gift cards to Starbucks and Amazon.

Members of the team have also gone around the school and written encouraging and positive affirmations on the glass in the bathrooms. Last week, school resource officers participated by doing a plank challenge, and a “Be Kind to Your Mind” campaign is also happening in the school’s library, with mental health awareness books being featured and students also making bracelets, and painting rocks. Last but not least, students are painting individual “End the Stigma” canvases that will be made into a larger mural that will eventually be displayed in the school’s lobby.

All of it will culminate with a Color Fun Run on May 24 that will start and end on the school turf field.

It was DeRosa and Flores who led the cornhole tournament charge.

“What all of this does is it keeps kids motivated and engaged,” Flores explained.

“And the best part is that it keeps them actively asking questions about the different disorders that they come across,” DeRosa added. “‘What’s this one about? How does this relate to this?’”

The cornhole tournament saw over 30 pairs compete on Saturday, won by the strong duo of Mike DeRosa, the Bridgehampton athletic director and brother to Christopher DeRosa, and his good friend Adam Escobar. The event featured food trucks from Blue Elm and Kona Ice, Propane Depot donated all of the water for the day and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and the Adam Miller Group donated the event’s T-shirts.

More importantly, six different organizations related to mental health set up information tables. Those included The Retreat, Southampton Youth Bureau, Hope For Depression, the Family Service League, OLA Youth Connect and HUGS. The tournament was also a fundraiser for the Dakari’s Hope Foundation Scholarship Fund given to one graduating senior each year and named after a student at Southampton who lost his life after struggling with mental health issues.

“In years past, there hasn’t been as much of an interest in mental health here, so this year we made more of an effort and I think we’ve legitimately addressed it,” said senior Brandon Perez, who is a part of the student-led mental health team. “It sends a very big message to our school that shows that we care and seeing so many people come out for the cornhole tournament was just amazing. As a volunteer it was an amazing experience.

“A big thanks to our school for allowing us to do this. It was our first one and we didn’t know how it was all going to go but it was amazing and as seniors we’re all going to be gone but we hope to see it come back next year,” he added.

Perez, along with fellow classmates Yassine Bokaissi, Vanessa Reyes and Danna Game-Perez, thanked the school for allowing them and their organization to put on such events.

“Thank you to Mr. DeRosa and Ms. Flores for coming in and, in a short amount of time, making such an impact on this school,” Reyes said.